


Luminous

by palepinkpores



Series: Light [3]
Category: The Fall (TV 2013), The X-Files
Genre: Bisexual Dana Scully, Childbirth, F/F, Family Fluff, Pregnant Dana Scully
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:28:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26424154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palepinkpores/pseuds/palepinkpores
Summary: Stella and Scully give Grace a sibling.
Relationships: Stella Gibson/Dana Scully
Series: Light [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1920700
Comments: 18
Kudos: 43





	Luminous

_“…I am never doing this again, you’re having the next one.”_

Mousy hair and a rumpled fringe in need of a trim tickled the top of her sleeping eyelids as she napped in her car seat, leaning into the headrest, snoring softly. Stella glanced in the rear-view mirror as she drove them down the motorway and smiled wearily at the thought of having to wake her when they arrived at the hospital. For now, Grace slept soundly in the back of her mother’s car, wearing stripy leggings and an oversized t-shirt, her comfort blanket bunched tightly into her right fist.

After pulling into the carpark and circling a few times until a space became available, Stella efficiently reversed into a parking space that had just been vacated by an elderly couple and their Nissan Micra. She turned the engine off and twisted around in her seat, rubbing Grace’s little knee as she did so.

“Gracie,” she murmured.

Grace stirred but drifted off again almost as quickly.

“Grace,” Stella tried a second time, giving her a gentle shake. “It’s time to wake up, sweet pea.”

The toddler whined softly as her eyes flickered open, squinting at the brightness of the sunset that lit the sky on fire around them.

“We’re here,” Stella whispered, stroking her daughter’s tiny sock-covered foot.

“Mama?” Grace asked groggily.

“Mama and our new baby are waiting for us,” Stella smiled.

“Oh,” Grace uttered as her eyes widened.

Stella slipped out of the car and carefully wedged open the door behind the driver’s side. She stroked Grace’s hair out of her eyes and beamed down at her.

“Are you excited to meet your sister?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Grace yawned, immediately entangling her hands in Stella’s unwashed hair.

Stella retrieved Grace’s shoes from the footwell and, after she had buckled them, unclipped the clasp of the car seat and lifted the drowsy toddler into her arms.

“Let’s go and find them and you can give her your gift,” she whispered into her cheek, handing her a yellow bear.

No one was more surprised by Stella’s irrevocable transformation into a mother than Stella herself. Throughout her maternity leave, she had been in her element. She breastfed Grace exclusively for the first six months of her life and then refused to buy baby food of any brand from the supermarket. Often, Stella would return from the office just in time for bedtime, lying down with her daughter for a feed, stroking her downy, pink cheeks as Grace suckled at her breast. Then, she would spend her evening blending various concoctions of vegetables and fruits for their childminder to feed Grace during the day. Stella had cried on Scully’s shoulder when she breastfed Grace for the last time at eighteen months old.

Another unanticipated development was her endless reserve of patience. Stella had always been able to hold her nerve and was renowned at the Met for treating her colleagues well, for mentoring younger members of the profession and barely batting an eye when they made mistake after mistake. A toddler, however, was an entirely different beast, but Stella found herself able to tolerate everything that came along with Grace. The hours and hours of unrelenting newborn crying, the mountains of dirty washing and nappies that were sometimes immediately filled as soon as they were changed. The occasional temper tantrum, wobbling first steps, tentative first words were all taken in Stella’s stride, so much so, she eventually reduced her hours at work. This meant that, though she still worked five days a week, Stella was not required to leave London to work on outside cases and her evenings and weekends were, mostly, hers, and she spent them all with Scully and Grace.

Grace wrapped her legs around her mother’s torso and rested her chin on her shoulder, watching the couple that followed them through the entrance to the Maternity unit of the hospital, a man and woman, she noted.

Stella followed the signs that led them through the maze of corridors and towards the ward where she had rested just over two years ago, after giving birth to Grace. Unaware of the familiar path they were walking, Grace crinkled her nose at the heavy, unfamiliar smell of the hospital. The significance of where they were and why they were there was completely lost on her as she snuggled sleepily into her mother’s neck.

They arrived at the doors of the ward just as one of the midwives was opening them to visitors, bang on the hour. Stella kissed the side of Grace's head and hitched her further up her body, feeling her tighten her legs around her stomach as she did so.

“They’ve just opened the doors, darling, we can go straight in,” Stella told her.

Grace lifted her head curiously as they walked with the other visitors past the rows of beds. Stella shifted her onto her hip, beaming as they approached the last bed in the row.

“Look who’s here, Gracie,” she whispered in her ear.

Grace’s head whipped around.

“Mama!” she screeched as soon as her eyes landed on Scully, sitting up in bed with a baby in her arms.

Stella and Scully laughed as the toddler, suddenly wide awake, scrambled to be freed from Stella’s arms and was deposited quickly onto the floor.

“Easy,” Stella cautioned, catching the back of her daughter’s t-shirt as she rushed towards the bed. “Mama’s just had a baby so we need to be careful with her, remember? No jumping.”

She scooped up their firstborn and carefully sat her on the bed at Scully’s side, where she immediately nestled herself under her outstretched arm.

“Hi, baby,” Scully hummed, kissing her crown. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“Mmm,” Grace sighed, burying her nose in Scully’s pyjamas and breathing in her familiar scent.

The baby whimpered on Scully’s chest and Grace’s head popped up in alarm. She looked at the squirming, red newborn curiously, seeming to have only just spotted her.

“Can you remember who this is?” Scully asked gently as Stella settled on the end of the bed and took pictures of the three of them on her phone.

“Baby,” whispered a wide-eyed Grace.

“Baby,” Scully confirmed, “This is our new baby. Your sister.”

“Sister,” Grace repeated, transfixed.

Their intelligent, articulate little girl.

“Oh my god,” Scully grinned, looking up at Stella.

“Hi,” Stella beamed right back, rubbing Scully’s calf from atop the sheets. “How are you feeling?”

“So good, I’ve never felt this good in my life,” Scully sighed.

***

Scully’s had been the textbook birth. After three days of irregular contractions, losing her mucus plug and a bloody show, Stella drove her to the hospital at two o’clock in the morning after contacting their trusted childminder, who had been on standby for the last week, to take care of Grace. Stella clutched the steering wheel with white knuckles as Scully groaned in the backseat, on her hands and knees, pressing her face into one of the headrests.

They had arrived at the hospital at quarter to three, where Scully refused Stella’s offer of a wheelchair and had waddled up to the reception desk herself, explaining that they had called ahead and they were here, before slumping over and moaning into the paper work as another contraction swept in. Stella rested a shaky hand between her shoulder blades and smiled at the approaching midwife in relief.

Scully laboured for a further four hours: pacing their hospital room, keeling on the bed, leaning over the bed, squatting by the windowsill, holding onto Stella’s shoulders as they stood and breathed together. She climbed into the pool to push, with two midwives behind her and Stella in front as she knelt in the warm water and grunted their second baby down. Her amniotic sac bulged out of her like a balloon before it ruptured in her hand.

Stella held the gas and air tube and wiped Scully’s face and neck after every heaving push. She winced slightly as the pitch of Scully’s vocalisations heightened when the baby crowned and encouraged her to take sharp puffs of the Entonox as the head was slowly born. Holding a gasping, slumped Scully with one arm, Stella rose to see their new baby’s face appear under the water in the mirror between Scully’s knees. The midwives’ grins shone up at her as she cried softly.

With two more forceful pushes, the baby’s shoulders were freed and the momentum fired the little being into the water, where the midwives immediately guided her through Scully’s legs.

As soon as Scully lifted her from the pool and the cool air hit her face, their second daughter squealed into Scully’s flushed chest at the shock of being born.

“You did it. Oh my god, you did it!” Stella sobbed, touching the baby’s slippery head.

Shakily and with the assistance of Stella and one of the midwives, Scully turned to sit against the side of the birth pool and turned to kiss Stella on the lips, their salty tears running into their mouths.

“Oh, she’s a girl,” Scully wept. “Gracie’s got a sister.”

***

“What do you think, honey?” Scully asked.

Grace clambered clumsily onto her knees and, after being steadied by Stella, peered into the blanket at the baby.

“Sister,” she said, pointing to show Stella.

“Your sister,” Stella agreed, moving to sit at Scully’s hip. “She loves you, Gracie.”

Grace giggled and turned to look at Stella as if it were the craziest thing she had ever heard.

“Why don’t you give our baby the present you got for her?” Stella suggested, pressing the discarded bear back into her hand. “She got one for you, too.”

Grace took the teddy and pushed it right into her sister’s face, with Scully having to quickly take hold of her arm before she smothered the settling baby.

“Here!” Grace exclaimed, excited.

Scully and Stella laughed as Grace looked at her baby sister in disbelief when she didn’t respond.

“She gets more like you every day,” Scully commented, raising her eyebrows at Stella.

“Gracie, she’s still too little to speak but she loves her present,” Stella explained. “Look what she got for you.”

Stella stood and reached into the small cupboard by Scully’s hospital bed and produced a lilac gift bag.

“Oh!” Grace squealed.

Stella placed the bag on Grace’s lap and opened her arms to the baby as Scully handed her over so she could help Grace with her presents. Stella cradled the seven pounds three ounces of her, rocking the baby slowly and stroking the curve of her Scully-like nose.

“A book, a big girl cup, a torch, some socks, some Play-Doh…” Scully listed as Grace pulled each item proudly from the packaging. “And look, a teddy just like your baby sister’s!"

“Aww,” Grace cooed, tilting her head.

She lifted the teddy into her arms and studied Stella’s hold on the new baby closely, imitating her and swaying with the stuffed toy. Scully watched, pouting as she caught Stella’s eye.

“Do you want to hold your sister, Gracie?” Scully asked her.

Grace considered the idea for a moment, before nodding, suddenly becoming serious as she pushed her presents away from her to make space. Scully reached for the spare pillow at her feet and slid it onto Grace’s knee, before Stella slowly eased the now sleeping newborn into Grace’s outstretched arms.

“Sit still, honey, let Mommy help you,” Scully said, while Stella arranged her arms to curl around the bundle.

Stella kept her hand under the baby’s head and perched on the bed by Grace’s feet, watching as she stared down at her new sister.

“Her name is Anna,” Scully told her.

“Anna,” Grace repeated, leaning down to lick her ear.

Stella and Scully laughed.

“Does she taste good?” Stella asked.

“Yeah…” Grace whispered.

“Hand me your phone and I’ll take some pictures,” Scully requested, taking Stella’s iPhone when she passed it over with her free hand.

She ensured she got Stella in frame too as she snapped away.

“They want me to stay in overnight,” Scully told Stella after a moments silence.

“Because of the bleeding?”

“Yeah, they said I bled more than usual after she was born, but it’s fine, everything’s normal. They want to keep me in just in case.”

“That’s fair enough,” Stella nodded. “We’ll come and pick you both up tomorrow.”

“Have you managed to sleep?” Scully asked.

“Not a wink,” Stella replied. “Grace was on the ceiling when I got home from the hospital this morning and I wasn’t tired, so we’ve been tidying and baking a birthday cake for Anna."

“That sounds good,” Scully yawned. “Make sure you get at least eight hours tonight, though. Something tells me we’re going to need it.”

“I think you might be right,” Stella smiled, leaning over to kiss her.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still working on the prequel, which includes the night they met and the early stages of their relationship, right up until Grace is born. It's definitely going to be multi-chaptered and is looking like it's going to be quite long. If there's anything specific you want me to include then let me know in an ask on my Tumblr, palepinkpores.tumblr.com.
> 
> Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, I'm hoping to have something else for you very soon!


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